Chocolate Financiers Recipe – French Almond Petit Four Cake

September 8, 2014

Today I’m making beautifully delicious French petits-fours, chocolate financiers with brown butter. Financiers are basic French traditional sweets and this is one of the first recipes I made at a cooking school in Paris. It’s really simple to make. How many petits-fours I made during my internship and how delicious they are! Enjoy!

Those are perfect with coffee or tea. Petits fours like financiers are really 5-star hotel suite worthy.

So for those French chocolate sweets, basically you will need only seven ingredients: butter, confectioners’ sugar, ground almond, flour, eggs, walnuts, and cocoa powder.

First, prepare brown butter. Over medium high heat, melt the butter.

Bring it to a boil and continue cooking stirring with a wooden stick until it starts to brown.

Brown butter, in French beurre noisette (hazelnut butter literally), is frequently used in French cooking and baking. Its caramel flavor is perfect for madeleines and today’s financiers.

For dry ingredients, sift ground almond and flour. You probably already noticed that I always use a flour sifter which makes sifting process way faster and a silicon trivet mat to hold a mixing bowl.

Then cocoa powder. High quality cocoa powder is critical for chocolate financiers.

Then whisk to combine.

In a bowl add in 3 egg whites and brown butter.

Whisk to combine.

Add in sifted confectioners’ sugar, 1/3 at a time.

Fold in dry ingredients.

Finally fold in chopped walnuts. Almond slices would be great, too.

Fill the financier molds. The golden bar shape gave this petit cake the name “financier” (investor, people in finance) .

So financier needs financier molds. But if you don’t have one, you can use a cupcake pan or any other mini molds. Just adjust the baking time according to the size of your cake.

Just bake for about 12 minutes. It’s quick.

Do you want to impress guests? Dip in melted chocolate of your choice and decorate with nuts.

Voila, Chocolate financiers, financiers au chocolat. Easy yet delectable chocolate treat. These petits-fours are perfect for tea time. Also those are great for all kinds of parties. Great nibbles for guests.

In a thick-bottomed sauce pan add in unsalted butter. And over medium high heat, melt the butter and bring it to a boil. Keep cooking. When it just starts to brown immediately transfer the butter into a heat-proof cup. The caramel flavor is fantastic. This is beurre noisette, brown butter. And let cool.

DRY INGREDIENTS

In a mixing bowl, sift in ground almond, all-purpose flour, unsweetened cocoa powder. And add in a generous pinch of salt. And whisk to combine. Set aside.

WET INGREDIENTS

In another mixing bowl, add in egg whites and now warm beurre noisette. And whisk to combine. Then sift in confectioners’ sugar in three times. Each time you add the sugar, whisk until smooth.

MIX WET AND DRY

Now pour the dry ingredients into the wet all at once and fold until combined. And finally fold in chopped walnuts. And divide the batter among the financier molds.

BAKE

Bake for about 12 minutes.

SERVE

Dip in the melted chocolate and decorate with chopped walnuts if you like.